


Unworthy

by ronqueesha



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 12:15:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8143670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ronqueesha/pseuds/ronqueesha
Summary: Shortly after defeating Corypheus, the Inquisitor receives a letter that shakes her to her very core.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Part of an art/fic exchange on the Dragon Age subreddit, here's my contribution for TrueSoprano's character, Jordan Trevelyan. 
> 
>  
> 
> You can find her blog [here](http://truesoprano.tumblr.com).
> 
> And visual aids for the character I wrote about [here](http://truesoprano.tumblr.com/tagged/jordan-trevelyan).

**_To: Inquisitor Jordan Trevelyan, daughter of the house of Trevelyan, the Herald of Andraste and champion of the faith, slayer of the false god Corypheus, the woman who sealed the breach_ **

**_From: Bann Maxwell Trevelyan, Lord of Ostwick_ **

****

**_News of your victory over the blighted Tevinter magister has reached our household. It is with joyful heart that I write to you on this day, and I beseech you, daughter, to allow passage for me and your mother to Skyhold to congratulate you personally…_ **

 

The CRASH of steel against steel hit Jordan Trevelyan like a slap. The impact rattled her aching hands, raced up her fatigued arms, and settled somewhere in her chest, which made her fluttering heart smash against her chest. She suppressed a primal grunt as her body shoved against the attacking sword, and pushed its wielder back several paces.

She wasted no time in putting her attacker in his place, and whipped forward for a thrust, intent on stabbing through his chest. A trivial move, one of the first she learned when she took up a sword, and something that often caught flashy showoffs off guard. Men and monsters who preferred to twirl their weapons in grand displays often left their chests exposed as they tried to intimidate her, and they always paid for it with their lives. And yet, as soon as she lurched forward, she felt the tip of cold steel against her stomach, twitching with barely-held restraint. The cocky grin of her opponent told her everything she needed to know.

“I didn’t expect such a sloppy move from you, Inquisitor.” Cullen said with a smile as he flicked his blade away from her body. He had contorted himself away from her blade and countered with a thrust of his own, aimed to specifically counter her counter. She should have expected something from such a trained and experienced fighter as him. Cullen was no flashy showoff, after all. Something she greatly appreciated.

Jordan said nothing as she took a graceful step away from the site of her near-disembowelment, and used the silent momentum to whip-turn on her left foot. Her weapon sliced through the cold Skyhold air like a razor through flesh, and rang like a bell as it created a gust of wind all its own.

The Inquisition’s commander had less than a second to react, and he brought his sword up to defend almost too late. Their blades again made violent contact, sending sparks into the frigid ground below and singing out with a sound not unlike a lightning bolt that struck too close. Again, the impact sent rippled up Jordan’s arms. Cullen winced as he felt the same brief agony.  

“What was that about sloppy, hmm?” She asked with a sweet smile of her own before disengaging and returning to her start position.

 

**_Though your correspondence with us has been sparse, we have watched your career with great interest. Your mother worried for you when the Grand Cathedral denounced you. I feared for your safety when I learned of the attack on Haven. And yet here you stand, victorious…_ **

 

“That could have decapitated me!” Cullen said with a small loss of mirth as he shrugged his shoulders and returned to a ready pose. His breaths came in hot puffs that misted over his brow, a common sight in these mountainous conditions. Now and then, a few curls of heat joined the ragged mess atop his head.

“Not my fault you didn’t keep your guard up.” She replied before swinging forward with a simple, yet powerful, downward cut. Had this been a real battle and not a sparring match in Skyhold’s expansive courtyard, she would have followed the weapon down along with the stunned enemy, and then pulled back with a kick to their jaw, or allowed a nearby mage to further destabilize the out-of-position enemy. Instead, she followed her weapon down, and let her face move very near to the commander’s as he kept hold of his weapon. Instead of turning her body to further harass him, she ruffled his unkempt hair.

In response, Cullen let out a growl of his own, a feral sound that he only expressed in truly frustrating moments. He pulled back with a violent lash, and returned his training sword to the ready position. Fortunately, his frustration drifted away as Jordan resumed her stance, replaced by the same cocky grin he showed when he overcame her thrust. “Care to try that again?” He asked.

She wanted nothing more than to wipe that smile from his face, especially after he so coolly rebuffed her last mocking blow to his hair. Jordan began her next attack with a pirouette not unlike what she did when she mock-decapitated him, but just before coming to the climax of the move, she bent her body down and thrust backward. She could not see Cullen behind her, but she knew he would have drawn his sword upward to again deflect a powerful cut. Instead, her sword pushed itself into his leather overcoat and stopped. As she turned around, gloating in her victory, she saw that her weapon had embedded itself just over his heart. Had the sword been sharpened and polished, it would have pierced through his chest with very little effort.

 

**_Allow us the indulgence of walking the halls you call your own. And by extension, we may call ours. Thanks to you, the Trevelyan family has never been more prosperous, faithful and acclaimed. Let us share in this newfound adulation together, daughter…_ **

 

 “That was… different.” Cullen said as he stepped backward and let Jordan’s practice sword fall away from him. He did not wear his full set of ornate armor when sparring in the mornings like this, even though he sometimes complained that he probably should have. Instead, the both of them wore simple brown leather clothes that provided small protection from blows with Skyhold’s training weapons. And now his chest had a rather conspicuous hole just above his heart. Jordan noted with satisfaction that some of his pale skin showed from underneath that cut, a little reddened from the impact. “If I had my shield with me, that wouldn’t have worked.”

“Too bad.” Jordan mocked and returned to her ready stance.

For a short time after, Jordan allowed Cullen to either “win” a few practice rounds, or end each brief spar at a satisfying draw. It gave her some time to think as her body performed moves and counter-moves almost on its own. A lifetime of training allowed her to fight without total concentration, and in that window, she let herself dwell on other things. A letter had arrived for her the day before, and sat on her desk as she sparred. Its contents did not leave her mind, no matter how hard she concentrated on the fight, and the man, before her. She lost herself to the poison honey words on the parchment, and let the world itself drift away…

 

**_Let us all forgive and forget past transgressions. Those events have come and gone, and a bright future for our house is just above the horizon. We owe much to you, daughter, and you to us. Extend an invitation to Skyhold so we may see you personally and take our place at your side, a united and powerful Trevelyan family…_ **

 

Cullen cried out with a shriek loud enough to turn the heads of nearly everyone in the courtyard.

“Watch yourself, Inquisitor!” Jordan’s partner shouted as he covered his left cheek. Her body must have forgotten this was a friendly spar and not a real life-or-death struggle, and she struck at Cullen’s vulnerable face. Jordan’s entire body flushed crimson as she realized her error, and almost dropped her sword as she watched Cullen hold his injury.

“I-I’m sorry.” She said as she took a tentative step forward. Her arms reached up to instinctively clutch his face, but he stepped backward.

“No, it’s fine.” Cullen said with a reassuring voice. “It just stings a little. You _did_ warn me to keep my guard up, after all.” He flashed a disarming, contented grin afterward, even though it seemed that the effort was almost too much for his injured cheek. After lowering his hand, she could see a massive red mark covering almost half of his face. The fresh wound seemed to glower at her, and Jordan momentarily lost all motivation to keep sparring.

“Maybe we should stop.” She said with a fragile voice.

“Nonsense. We’ve just begun.” Cullen said as he flexed his jaw with another grunt of effort, then resumed his ready stance. “Besides, now it’s my turn.”

With vigor, Cullen struck out with his training weapon, his injured face twisted into an expression of grim concentration. Not threatening, but dangerous in its own right. Jordan brought her sword up to defend, but not with her full strength behind the block. Cullen smashed through her flimsy defense as if she stood bare and undefended, and crushed his body against her as he followed through. The dull edge of his blade touched against her throat in a way that would have sliced into her vulnerable jugular if this were a real fight, and left her bleeding on the frozen ground below. Instead, Cullen’s icy sword just bit into her skin less than a fingernail’s width.

He pulled away a half-heartbeat later, his expression faltered as he did so. “What was that, Jordan? I could have hurt you!”

“But you didn’t.” She flashed back.

Cullen nodded with disapproval and returned to a ready stance. “Don’t let me win because you feel guilty about this little sting on my cheek, Inquisitor. I’ve suffered much worse.”

 

**_Before I forget, your mother bade me to remind you to keep your composure when you address the mothers in the Grand Cathedral. We have heard reports of you not showing proper respect to them. Nor did you extend the family greeting to Empress Celene when you met her in Halamshiral. We expect much more from you as a daughter of Ostwick…_ **

****

“It’s not that,” Jordan confessed as she raised her sword with a half-hearted effort. The more she thought about the letter on her desk, the heavier the weapon became.

“Well whatever it is, let it go.”

Let it go? Did he not understand? But then again, how could he? Cullen was not privy to every single letter that came across Jordan’s desk, especially ones that came direct from her father. Just like she didn’t read every ounce of correspondence that Cullen had to sift through in his regular duties. Months ago, they made the decision to keep some aspects of their work separate, mostly to keep their combined sanities intact. If they both tried to understand the full burden of Inquisitor and Commander at the same time, it would have been overwhelming. 

Overwhelming. Yes. That was the word for it. A simple letter from one of her parents had been enough to shake the foundations of the woman who single-handedly saved the world, and overwhelm her with distracting and terrible thoughts.

“I can’t.” She said as she held up her sword as if she were a day-one novice again. No strength, no fury, and no stance. The blade moved in her hand like an unpolished hunk of iron rather than a honed weapon.

“You can.” He said with fire and grit reserved for her and her alone. “Now come on, keep your sword up.” He followed up his words with a slow, obvious slash meant specifically to hit her training sword. The blades tapped together like a fork and knife at a dinner table. Jordan did not change her stance, nor did she move to block the attack like she should have. Instead, Cullen had to stop himself at the moment of impact and let his own weapon drop.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I urge you to stop. What if your father were here to see this?” Cullen often resorted to “tough reassurance” with the soldiers when he oversaw their training, because such rough encouragement often got the best results from people dedicated to fighting. He also knew something of her father, and his impact on her life. All of their late night talks and soul-bearing conversations to each other had revealed much of their past traumas, because they both wanted more than anything for the other to heal and move forward.

It seemed he wished to turn that hope of renewal into a source of anger for her.

“What did you say?” Jordan asked as her hand instinctively tightened around the sword’s hilt.

“I said, ‘What if Bann Trevelyan were here right now’?” Cullen said with a grin, but his words came out heavy and menacing, as if he were growling at an opponent. “How would he react to his daughter putting on such a pathetic show?”

Her muscles tensed and her back stiffened. Bad form for fighting, but good for trying to look strong and intimidating.

“Don’t…” she said through gritted teeth.

“I think he’d say that you weren’t good enough to-“ Cullen’s well-rehearsed words of humiliation, meant to motivate and encourage the Inquisition’s fighting forces into training harder, were cut off as Jordan rushed forward with a shout. Her sword went high, aimed at a slight angle to cut his vulnerable and exposed throat open.

CRASH! The two of them engaged in battle once more, hurling their weapons at each other with well-trained abandon. Neither of them gave ground, but neither of them showed any sign of pausing the spar.

Jordan’s vision narrowed as she concentrated on putting Cullen strictly in his place. He wanted to see what it would be like if her father were here? He would see. And he would see every excruciating detail as she enacted all of the dark thoughts that swirled in her head. He blocked high, so she slashed low and caught his knee with the flat of the training sword. He jumped back, so she thrust into his stomach, bruising his leather-covered muscles. When he tried to counter, she blocked with her own forearm, ignoring the welts and shallow cuts the polished-yet-dull sword made, and struck back with twice the furor.

Her breaths came hot and heavy, hot mist pouring from her nose and parted lips like a mother dragon. Oh how she reveled in this.

 

**_Your response is eagerly anticipated._ **

**_Sincerely, Bann Trevelyan._ **

****

Cullen backpedaled under her withering assault, taking blind steps toward the stone staircase that led up to Skyhold’s main keep. His expression withered as he did so, obviously taken by realization that he had made a mistake. Had he a shield, he would have been able to keep Jordan’s reckless attacks at a distance and worked her down. Had he armor, he could have taken any blow from the training sword as if it were nothing and turn the tide in his favor. Instead, his training clothes and fellow dull blade kept him woefully unprepared and humbled in the face of a woman out of control.

“Jordan!” He shouted with a cracked voice, no longer caring to maintain any sense of propriety in front of the awakening Inquisition. 

The Inquisitor didn’t care to listen. In her mind, Cullen’s words came true in ways he could never understand. Before her, the man she dueled was no longer the commander of her armies and the one she ran to every night. Instead, she saw her father towering over her, chastising her for her pursuit of martial interests rather than “proper things”, and using his poison words to cut deep into her soul.

Every time she hit him, Cullen cried out. But she only heard her father shouting at her.

“Stop this!” became “Not good enough!”

“Jordan, please!” turned into “Not worthy.”

“I apologize!” morphed like magic into “Disappointment.”

She attacked. Then she attacked again. She pushed her father to the stairs and forced him to take an uneasy step upward. His longer reach had been nullified by her stubborn refusal to take a step back and regroup. This was no longer a sword duel, this was a knife fight with long blades. Any mistake, any misstep, and even a training weapon could cause serious harm.

She had no intention of killing him, Cullen or her father, but she would make her point known. She _was_ good enough, and she _was_ worthy of her place at Skyhold, family name be damned. And if Cullen wanted to see how she’d react to her father’s presence, he would see it firsthand.

Cullen skipped a step and lurched backward. He did not fall, nor did he lose his sword, but he did land heavily on his thigh. In Jordan’s mind, her father did the same. She stood over him, weapon ready to strike.

And then a new voice joined her father. “The hell is this?” Deep and husky, with a hint of early-dawn cragginess that sounded like a rock cracking against itself.

Next to her panicking Cullen-turned-father, the source of the voice walked up. Short and hirsuite, covered in an elegant red shirt that left very little to the imagination, and holding a cup full of brown liquid that steamed in the chill air. “Inquisitor?” Varric asked, concern etched across his weathered eyes.

Jordan looked up at him. And then she turned to see others in the courtyard around her. Faces both familiar and strange stared at the Inquisitor with faces of concern and worry. They had all gathered to watch the spar-turned-duel as if it were a fairground entertainment. Cassandra arrived not long after, half-dressed in armor and hand on her sheathed sword just in case.

“What is going on?” she asked out of breath. Clearly she had been rushed out by the news of Jordan and Cullen fighting.

And in that instant, surrounded by friends, and seeing the man below her with wide eyes and ragged breaths, her rage cooled. Her heart stopped thundering and her vision turned as clear as the morning sky.

“I believe I was being taught a lesson.” Cullen said as he returned to his feet. The sword in his right hand scraped across the stone with an unpleasant screech, while his left hand reached for Varric’s shoulder for support. Jordan turned to face him as he once again stood over her.

“Cullen, I-“ She tried to squeak out, but found her voice locked.

“It’s all right.” He said. “But if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll skip the rest of the sparring.”

 

***

 

Jordan retreated to her chambers for the rest of the day. With no more world-ending threats to worry about and no hardened criminals waiting in Skyhold for judgment, she had little reason to go out and mingle with the rest of the castle’s denizens. Besides, she still had the matter of the letter, and her completely inappropriate response to it, to tend to.

She sat behind her desk, unmoving, for hours on end. Now and then, her glance would shift to some of the other official documents that covered her expansive office, most of them penned and delivered by Josephine. The advisor’s flowing ink and flowery language turned into a sea of pleasant, if dull, writing compared to the island of harsh angles and crushing disappointment in her father’s words. Part of her wanted to toss the parchment out the window and never look at it again. But knowing her luck, the strong mountain winds would carry the letter right back into the castle, and a hapless servant would return it to her hands as if she carelessly lost it.

Besides, for a noble house as wealthy and respected as the Trevelyans, it would not do for her to just ignore her father’s words. Even though she would prefer to never see or speak to the man again, her role as Inquisitor demanded certain unpleasant duties from her. Sure, Josephine could write something in her stead, but Jordan would be forced to read and sign it before it could be delivered. And knowing Josie, she would give Bann Maxwell Trevelyan the entirely wrong idea. Josephine might even invite him with open arms to Skyhold, if only to make some grand and complex political statement that made Jordan’s head ache to think about.

The sun dipped behind the mountains when Jordan felt like standing again. Her muscles had gone stiff and weary after the stress of the morning and then a full day of sedentary stillness. They begged her for a quick stretch, or perhaps a good night’s sleep in her large empty bed.

Such a thought made her lips curl into a frown. These days, without the stress of a world-ending magister to keep her busy at all hours, she more often than not found herself with company in her far-too-large private quarters. She had somehow convinced Cullen to relinquish the drafty and poorly-built closet that sat adjacent to his office, and given him a proper place to sleep every night next to her. Jordan merely had to glance at the bed to see a spare shirt and a pair of muddy boots, too large for her feet, to denote his previous decision to bed with her.  

At least, until today.

As the sky above turned from cool yellow into an almost blood red, Jordan stepped out to her small balcony and stared at the evening activity of Skyhold. Dozens of people milled in the various yards and the garden, conducting their business, or perhaps just resting after a full day of activity. Like her, the castle had settled into a strange routine following the death of Corypheus. Every day, the castle felt less like a desparate military outpost and more like a chantry pilgrimage site, full of lazy holy people and wide-eyed tourists.

Tourists. People who just wanted to visit and share a brief moment with the people who saved the world. People like her parents. Her hands balled into fists as she thought about her father’s letter, and her response to it this morning.

_Unworthy._

She closed her eyes and tried to banish the thoughts and memories. Not just her unwarranted attack on Cullen, but older thoughts that refused to escape her mind. Old wounds that refused to heal, not even with Cullen’s help, reopened as she lost herself to the past, and fears of the future.

Just as she felt heat riding down her cheeks, borne on thick tears that wetted her entire face, a knock rapped against her chamber’s main door. The shock of the sound created a spike of anxiety that gripped her spine and banished most of the dark thoughts, giving her enough clarity to turn and face back into her dimming bedroom. She could have refused to answer, or given a strict instruction to not be bothered, but she didn’t. Instead, Jordan Trevelyan marched across her living space and put her hand on the latch.

Cullen’s face greeted her as soon as she swung the heavy slab of wood open.

“I, uh, hello.” He stammered as he reacted to the shock of the sudden answer. Jordan saw him standing on unsteady feet, and his cheek showed obvious swelling and the formation of a light, but noticeable, bruise. His hands were held out in a similarly awkward manner, holding two bowls of simmering food that seemed to defy instant recognition.

“Cullen.” She said before her throat choked tight. The memories and images returned in full force.

“May I come in?” He asked with a tender softness that he reserved just for her. The sound, that simple sound of his warmth and caring, cut through her emotions like a knife. Like a lighthouse springing to life in the middle of a midnight squall, she saw a light in her mental darkness.

She clung to it.

“Of course.”

The commander wasted no time in taking a double-time pace to Jordan’s desk and set the bowls down as soon as he could, then rubbed his hands together to banish what must have been intense but lingering pain from the heat. He then turned to face her.

“Listen, about this morning…” He began with his usual stammer, and his even more usual pose of ‘hand behind neck, as if scratching an itch’.  “I realize I must have said something to deeply upset you, and I apologize. It won’t happen ag-…”

“No.” Jordan interrupted.

“No?”

“I mean… I should be the one to apologize.” Jordan looked upward, into the eyes of the man she pledged herself to, and let the floodwaters in her mind pour. Where a few heavy tears crossed her cheeks moments before, a new torrent joined them. Where once horrific thoughts swirled exclusively in her mind, she let them out for him to hear. “I know words may not mean much in the face of what I did… but…”

And so she told him everything. The letter, her past, and why she reacted as she did. Because, above all else, she knew she could trust him with it. After all, they both made promises long ago to one another to be a source of healing and solace in times of such need.

By the time she was done speaking, Jordan realized the two of them had moved to her bed, with him sitting at her right side, hand clasped over hers. The intense look on his face betrayed no emotion as she took in the information. Around them, the sun finished its descent, and thus bathed them in near-total darkness. Only the dim illumination of her half-dead hearth gave any light to their faces.

“… I understand that there may be nothing left… for us… after what I did. But you needed to know.” She said with a shaking, weak breath.

The silence that followed threatened to swallow her whole. For a brief instant, Cullen’s look of loving concern morphed into her father’s cold countenance, but she shoved that away as fast as she could. She would not succumb to _that_ ever again.

“How could you say that?” He asked in the stillness.

“What?”

“I forgive you.” He said with that same quiet, but strong, confidence. “I had no idea you were so deeply affected, and it won’t happen again.”

“I should have told you a long time ago.” She said, her cheeks flushing red with shame.

“Well, yes, you should have. But what’s done is done. And right here, right now, I choose to forgive you.”

And then he moved in such a way that shocked and terrified Jordan, but only for a moment. He let go of her hand, but only so he could twist around and wrap both of his strong, powerful arms around her.

“Whatever you decide to say back to that man.” Cullen whispered in her ear. “You have my full support, and the support of the entire Inquisition. You’ve more than earned your place as out leader, and you’ve proved time and again that you’re worthy.”

Jordan didn’t respond with words, she just raised her arms to join his in the embrace. A moment later she craned her neck upward to touch her lips against his. A brief contact, full of questions and the lingering remains of her darkness and doubt. A moment later, those shadowy embers were dispelled when Cullen reciprocated, pushing closer to her and deepening the kiss with a power, warmth and strength all his own. A silent reminder that he would always fulfill his promise to her.

She didn’t remember falling asleep, nor did she recall eating the food Cullen brought to her. Even the morning after remained hazy in her mind.

The letter, though? She would never forget how she responded.  


End file.
